[✨ Job Thread] Something A Little Sweet

[Alekxandra Winterflame]

36th, Summer, 516 A.V.
Luminary Commons

”We’re going to do something a little different today.” Alekxandra glanced to her left at Eirolta as she hung her cloak up onto one of the many for the cooks in the back of the kitchen. Different was never bad, but there was something in Eirolta’s voice that made Alek wonder just what kind ‘different’ they were going to attempt today.

”Teaching me a new kind of meat today?” Alek had heard there was a rather bountiful catch of squid. It was something she had never had the chance to really cook with–it tended to difficult to cook just right without getting tough–so usually the more experienced cooks worked with it while Alek stuck to perfecting her work on red meat.

”Pudding.” Eirolta grinned brightly… if not a little tauntingly. Alek blinked at her several times before her face scrunched in confusion. Sweets weren’t terribly uncommon in Avanthal, but the commons almost never served anything sweet unless it was fruit and even that was harder to come by given it was an export.

”Pudding?” The word made it’s way out of her mouth before she could stop it. Eirolta laughed and hooked her elbow into hers and led Alek back towards one of the prep tables. A quick stop before the table however, Alek made sure to dunk her hands into one of buckets of warm water kept near the fire, scrubbing her fingers with the soap to ensure they were clean before sidling up next to Eirolta at the table.

”Nenvar wants all his cooks to be well rounded. And while yes it’s not generally available here in the commons, we do make it up in larger batches for say celebrations like the Aurora Soiree coming up.” On the table in front of her rested several different dry ingredients, as well as several bowls and a few small knives. She could easily make out the cocoa powder despite never having used it. Hot chocolate was something of a favored delicacy among her family members however. There looked to be sugar and salt as well. But what stood out most was the potatoes sitting on the table, already peeled.

”Potatoes go in pudding?” Alek picked one up and waved at Eirolta. It was another export of course, but probably one of the easiest to get. Potatoes lasted quite awhile in proper storage and they of course often ended up in soups when in supply, but for them to actually be in pudding of all things…

”Oh you should see your face!” Eirolta barked out laughing. Huffing slightly, she put the potato back on the table and strongly resisted the urge to fold her arms across her chest. Eirolta shook her head, trying to get herself under control before patting Alek on the back.

”Yes and no my dear.” Pointing to a fine white powder on the table in a small bowl that Alek had first thought to be flour, before picking up the peeled potato.

”Believe it or not, potatoes do eventually go bad. Normally we put them into stews right away, but it’s nice to make use of them in other ways as well. I’m going to teach you how.”

[Alekxandra Winterflame]

”First things first, we need to dice up the potatoes as fine as we can.” Eirolta motioned towards one of the larger knives first and Alek copied the woman as they simply went about breaking down the potatoes. First slicing them in half, and then each of those in half as well. From there Alek cubed the potatoes as evenly as possible. The smaller the potato sections the easier they were to slice, and potatoes were always harder to slice. Especially since these were still raw.

From there Eirolta simply shaved small flakes off each cube. It was time consuming to say the least, but if nothing else it gave Alek a chance to work on her knife skills. It almost felt as if she was trying to be a sculptor–only there was no stopping once the cube met a certain standard. After what could have easily been a bell, or maybe even two, her potato was no longer anything except what one could almost count as grainy potato flakes everywhere.

”Very nice. Next time we’ll work on you cutting them a little smaller, but this will do just fine for your first attempt.” Alek grunted at the thought of doing this tedious kind of chopping in the future. Her hands were already cramped up and the idea of putting them through such torture again… well she supposed it came with the job. Literally.

Instead of voicing her complaint however she simply rubbed her fingers into the tissue of her hands, mostly around her thumb and the skin in between, all the way up to her wrist. Her left hand was worse, being the dominant hand that held the knife. She winced as the muscles complained from too much use, but if Eirolta noticed she didn’t say anything.

Instead the woman simply handed her a bowl that was lined with cheesecloth. She scooped up the potato flakes in front of her and dumped them into the bowl on top of the cloth. As Alek mimicked her motions and added her own potatoes to her bowl, Eirolta fetched a clean pot of water.

Slowly she added water to the bowl right over the flakes they had worked so hard and long to create. Passing the bowl to Alek she was mildly surprised to find that the water wasn’t hot, just mildly warm. She too added the water to the potatoes and followed Eirolta as she took the ends of her cheesecloth and tied all four ends together.

”I know your hands are sore, but now we get to squeeze the potatoes firmly. We want all the water we just poured on them to be wrung out of the potatoes. And make sure to squeeze the potatoes firmly as well. Get as much liquid out as you can.” Lifting the cheesecloth over the bowl Alek noted that most of the water just filtered out of the cheesecloth anyways. Grimacing slightly as her hands protested the movement, Alek squeezed the flakes as hard as she could.

[Alekxandra Winterflame]

”Alright these will sit in the chill box for four or so bells before we pull it. The liquid will separate and we simply drain the water off the top and what is left will be dried into a powder that we have multiple uses for. Normally we use it to thicken broth to turn into gravy, but it is also useful for making pudding.” Eirolta summarized as Alek followed the woman with bowls in hand to the far back of the kitchen.

Pulling open a thin wooden door, Alek passed Eirolta to place the bowls on an ice shelf in the small wooden room. Most of this small room was built with thin walls on the outer side of the commons so that the natural cold from outside could keep the items inside cooler than the kitchens themselves, however still allowed for the heat of the kitchens to keep things from freezing through entirely. It was kind of amazing in Alek’s opinion. She had no idea the kind of engineering it took to get it just right.

”Could you grab a few of the large bottles of caribou milk? We’ll go ahead and get started on the pudding now that we’ll have back up thickener now.” With a nod Alek snagged two gallon sized pitchers of milk on her way out. Taking one from her Eirolta made her way back to the table and lifted one of small bowls sitting on the table filled with a white powder.

”This is what our hard work with the potatoes will yield once we drain the spare fluid and let the remaining mixture dry out. We could use it wet, it resembles a paste, but it stores much easier like this.” Now that she properly looked at the powder it was actually rather familiar. To the untrained eye like hers it favored the look of flour. She hadn’t had much chance to work with either of them though. Most of the time items needed for stews and such were already prepped on a table for her and thoroughly labeled. If she had to guess however Eirolta didn’t need labels to be able to tell the difference.

”We’ll start with making a small batch to teach you the easy steps before we try and make a much larger one. Better to take small steps first.”

”Are we actually going to be serving this in the commons too?” Alek’s voice came out more like a squeak than anything else. She couldn’t help but be just a little nervous.

”Yes, we’ll serve a little of it tonight. But we’ll be starting in a few days to make the larger batches for the Soiree and we want everyone to be ready.” If Eirolta picked up on Alek’s nerves she didn’t comment on them. The fact she would be helping prepare desserts for the Soiree didn’t help the nerves either. Pulling a deep breath, Alek swallowed thickly and turned to the table before letting out her breath in a loud puff.

It was just pudding right?

[Alekxandra Winterflame]

Apparently it wasn’t as easy as Alek had hoped. It started easily enough. A simple mix of the potato starch, sugar, salt, and cocoa powder into a two quart cooking pot. Eirolta informed her that she needed to make sure there were no lumps in the powdered mix when she added the caribou milk or it would require some very brisk whisking with a fork to remove the lumps later. Even with the advice and taking her time to try and weed out the lumps Alek discovered several as she began to add the milk.

Either way she knew she had to whisk the liquid. As she gently pushed the pot over the fire she kept the liquid moving. Eirolta was called away to help in the front, but not before she had told Alek to make sure the mixture came to a boil. Apparently however getting things to a boil and keeping things at a boil were two very different things. As she stirred and stirred waiting for the mixture to start to thicken she realized it was actually starting to stick to the bottom. That was how Eirolta found her, trying almost desperately to work the burnt portion on the bottom from getting worse.

”The boil is necessary, but you have to ensure you aren’t over too much heat otherwise you burn the mixture to the bottom.” Alek huffed slightly at the words. It was another reason she wasn’t terribly fond of stew. She often made it, but it wasn’t a terrible surprise to find that sometimes she had applied just a little too much heat. It was a tricky thing finding just the right heat over the fire at times.

”I’ll stick with you this time. Let’s try again.” Grumbling under her breath Alek placed the burnt mixture in a deep bin and added a bucket of hot water to the pot so that it would be easier to clean later.

Returning to the table, Eirolta had just finished portioning out new powders for her. Alek took her time, slowly adding the first four ingredients. First using a spoon to mix them together and then using her fingers to ensure that it was lump free. Eirolta giggled and shook her head slightly as she handed Alek a new fork.

”I’ll let you take your time now, but when we make the big batches later you’ll have to work just a little faster alright?” Alek nodded slightly as she fit the pot into the stand and returned back to the table for the caribou milk.

”Believe it or not once you master getting this down, you’ll be able to adjust it to add different flavors. More cocoa or vanilla, or adding nuts. For the larger portions we’ll make later we will actually do that for at least of them.”

”More chocolate?” Alek stared at Eirolta. She could hardly imagine trying to adjust the recipe when she couldn’t even get it over the fire without burning the bottom.

[Alekxandra Winterflame]

Alek added the caribou milk slowly, much like she had when she added the powders together. It seemed to help because the mixture did not form lumps like it had before. Breathing a sigh of relief, Alek pressed this pot over the heat like the previous and bit her bottom lip in concentration. She hated making the same mistake over and over–unless it had to do with having fun. Some of those mistakes were kind of enjoyable to make twice.

”Don’t stir so much, just every once and while until it comes to boil. Then you will constantly stir.” Reluctantly she pulled the fork from the chocolate milk mixture and watched as it swirled slowly without her help.

”This is my first time making any kind of dessert. I don’t know if I like it that much.” She ruffled and Eirolta shrugged lightly.

”It’s not so bad–it’s like anything else really. You learn your tells about what you're making whether it’s cake or meat or pudding. It doesn’t hurt to be well rounded in everything, but it’s not surprising that eventually you’ll find something you love making above everything else. You never know, in time this might become your favorite dish.” Alek couldn’t help but snort at the thought. For some reason she couldn’t imagine herself making anything specific. Probably because she hadn’t found that one thing that she wanted to do more than anything else. In some ways she kind of envied those like Cerves. He loved anything sweet and practically knew he was born for making such things.

”You in there Alek? You’ve almost hit a boil there.” Alek shook her head slightly, trying to pull herself from her own head. She was never going to get this right if she didn’t focus and she had plenty of time later to mull over her future anyway. It seemed just as she drew her attention to the pot it began to boil and Alek made sure to whisk with her fork as it did.

Once it had started to boil she began to see a difference in texture. Unlike before where it stuck to the bottom and had begun to burn, it began to thicken instead. After only two or three chimes–Alek really wasn’t sure how long exactly–Eirolta let her know that she should remove the mixture from the heat altogether.

Handing her the butter and vanilla Alek added the final touches to the pudding and stirred it until it was well blended. Carefully she lifted the pot and placed it on the table on one of the many flattened round stones to let it cool. Eirolta nodded thoughtfully as she inspected Alek’s final result.

”That’s fairly decent my dear for a second try. We will let this round cool a little and serve it warm to those in the commons tonight. For the Soiree we will have a few batches already cold and ready to go and a few that are freshly warm as well. Maybe we’ll even get to make some with fruit to add.” Alek’s stomach rumbled happily at the thought. Even if it wasn’t as easy as she thought to make, her nose told her that it smelled delicious.

”You of course get the first bowl when it cools. Until then you have plenty of time to clean up the pots and bowls you used before we get started on making some larger batches.” Patting her back smugly Eirolta went about returning to the front while Alek stared at the pots sullenly.

With the best meals always came the worst dishes.

[Maro]

Alek Skills +Cooking +4 +Endurance +1 +Food Preparation +1 +Food Preservation +2 +Massage +1 +Observation +2 +Socialization +1 Lores -Eirolta: A Good Mentor -Always Clean Your Hands Before You Cook -Make Use of Food Before It Goes Bad -Raw Potatoes Are Harder to Slice -Powdered Potato Acts as a Thickening Agent -"Better to Take Small Steps First" -Make Sure Lumps Are Out of Dry Ingredients Before They Get Wet -Pudding: Bring the Mixture to a Boil -Too Much Heat Will Burn the Food -Work in Large Kitchens Requires Speed -Adding Ingredients Slowly Can Help -Recipe: Pudding -"With the best meals always come the worst dishes." Notes : Nice thread. I'm glad to see Alek struggle as she learns.If you think I've missed something or would like lore rephrased, PM me and let me know. I'm still new to grading. Otherwise, enjoy your grades and remember to mark your request as graded.